December 17, 2009 -- Day 105 -- We've got light!

The electricians finished their work and we now have light in the house. The old electric system is a "knob and tube" system. I don't know what that is but I'm sure James does. Anyway...we had the electricians rewire the bathroom and kitchen, adding outlets and ceiling lights as needed. We have the possibility for under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen which always looks nice. Next on the list of things to do is getting the furnace up and running!

December 12, 2009 -- Day 100!!

We've officially owned the house for 100 days. =)

The plumbing was finished last week...thank you to the plumber who looked like Terrence Howard. They installed our new water heater in the garage (it was previously housed in a closet in the hallway), all new PVC pipe plumbing under the house, and all the drains for our various appliances.
We're hoping to get the electrical work done this week. Then, James will install our gas lines and it will be inspection time!

December 9, 2009 -- Day 97 -- Plumbing Starts!

You can't have a fish without a fork and you can't take a shower without water. Today, (fingers crossed) the plumber will begin his work on the house. We're replacing the water heater, adding a water softener, and moving plumbing around in the bathroom and kitchen. Add this to the old pipes and we've got a lot of plumbing work. We've decided to hire a sub-contractor for the plumbing. James would be able to do the work but for the price, it makes more sense for us to hire a plumber. Wish us luck!!!

November 23, 2009 -- Day 81 -- Tiiimmmmmberrrr!!! And two special visitors

This day was a big day. Number 1, we had a large amount of yardwork done. And Number 2, Ada's parents came to visit and see the house!

Number 1: The front and back yards are large in size but hadn't been maintained well. Also, the landscaping and placement of trees was just strange. In the front yard, there was a big Yucca (the Yucky Yucca, we call it) tree about 3 feet in diameter with a huge bulbous ugly trunk. There was also a juniper shaped into the shape of a can of tuna. The picture above doesnt show the yucky yucca, but you can see the juniper tin can on the right side. As you can tell, I'm talking about these trees in the past tense. We got rid of them! James was at the house and said it took almost no time at all for the crew to cut down and grind up the big yucca. (There will be more pictures coming soon.)

In the back yard, there is a really big oak tree that will offer a lot of shade in the summer, but was incredibly overgrown. We had the crew prune this tree and we'll see how healthy it is in the spring when it starts to grow its leaves again. During the last big storm, a branch the size of a tree came off and crashed into the ground. We're really lucky how it landed and that it didn't break anything! (Again, more pictures soon.)

Number 2: Ada's parents came to visit from Washington for Thanksgiving and got to see the house! We're really glad they got to see the house before it's finished. These are going to be great before and after pictures.

November 8, 2009 -- Day 66 -- Water Weekend!

Water Heater
Remember, this house is a fixer upper. This includes a water heater that was small (30 gallons?) and at least 10 years past it's life expectancy. So, we set out this weekend to get a new water heater! James had looked at prices, sizes, and energy star qualifications and basically had the water heater picked out. We're looking to get a 50-gallon (house size of 2-4 people), gas powered, energy star qualified water heater.
We went to Lowe's and they didn't have it in stock! So, we drove over to Home Cheapo (Home Depot to some) to see if they had it in stock. They did, but it was about 30 feet off the ground up on the 3rd tier of shelves so we couldn't get it down ourselves. We asked the customer service guy to get it down for us. He then tried to convince us we should probably just get the 60-gallon water heater. It was only $100 more! Of course, we knew that he meant that the 60-gallon one is sitting right in front of us and he wouldn't have to get the lift machine out and go up to get the other water heater. I saw that a 60 gallon water heater is for a household of 5+ people and said to the guy, "There's no way we'll ever have 5 people in our household!" So, we forced this poor guy to do his job and go up and get the water heater! Hooray! We have a new water heater with a 12 year life expectancy. But, James says if you flush it out every year and replace some part every few years, you can increase the life expectancy. Thank you James!

Water Softener
One of the big differences between living at my condo in Mountain View and living in Santa Clara will be water quality. In Mountain View, we got delicious, sparkling, fresh, clean Hetch Hetchy water. It tastes like you're drinking directly from a mountain spring. In Santa Clara, we get cloudy, minerally, fizzy well water. It tastes like you're drinking directly from a piece of sulphur. Plus, the minerals leave all kinds of nasty deposits on your dishes, glasses, bathroom fixtures and tile. What this means is that we need to buy a water softener and a water filtration system for the drinking water. There's a softener for "hard water" and "very hard water". We bought a test kit then remembered that we'd turned off the water in the house! If we turn it on, there's a chance of flooding. Fortunately, the neighbor is super friendly and gave us a gallon of his tap water to test. The results were not surprising-very hard water. So, we'll buy the softener for the very hard water.

We're hoping to get plumbing done this week or next and then on to electrical!

October 24 -- Day 51 -- Ready for Plumbing and Electrical!

Since we're enlarging both the bathroom and kitchen, we need to move around the plumbing and electrical ... stuff. Sorry, I'm a layAda so I don't have a better word to use than stuff. James removed all the old plumbing this weekend for a clean start. We also bought the bathtub to put in. It's going to be the same tub that we put in the condo. A jetted Jacuzzi tub from Lowe's for a great price!
We're finding that since we already did a lot of research when remodeling my old condo, we're using many of the same resources as before. That's working well so far, if it ain't broke don't fix it, right?

October 19 -- Day 46 -- He finally called back!

After a week of un-returned phone calls, we got in touch with the architect! But, only by calling the engineer and saying "hey, we haven't heard from the architect, how much will new engineering cost?". Funny, we heard from the architect about 5 minutes later saying that there would be no cost.
That is a difficult thing in remodeling-waiting for others. When James and I were remodeling my condo, the fridge arrived with a dent in it. The company called and said they could "put a magnet over it". I didn't know what the heck that meant so I said no way! Then, it took a few more weeks to get the replacement fridge. Things always go slower than you hope during a remodel. But, we're still living in James' apartment so we're not living in a cardboard box...yet.

October 9 -- Day 37 -- Frustration

The architect we hired to draw the plans did them wrong. Ugh!

October 3, 2009 -- Day 30 -- The walls (and ceiling) come out

The pictures of these days are a jumble of mess where it's impossible to tell what's going on. But, here's the synopsis! The sheetrock was removed from the bathroom wall and the kitchen wall-thereby getting rid of the laundry room. New wall framing was put up and a hole due in the ground underneath the house for a new foundation "footing". If you want to know what that is, you'll have to ask James.
While James worked on the structural elements, I worked on the beautification elements. I painted the master bedroom with a second coat of paint. We're painting the master bedroom a slightly different color than the rest of the interior. I also cut up some trees that James had cut down a few weeks ago. Santa Clara offers a "green garbage" can where we can throw away all yard garbage like leaves, trees, grass, but not garden gnomes. I filled up the can and still have more to go!
Onward!

September 24, 2009 -- Day 19 -- Goodbye Sheetrock and Appliances!

Kitchen before.

Kitchen during. Notice James' green ladder and that all the cabinets are gone.
Kitchen during. We're taking away the laundry room, so we had to take the sheetrock off some of the walls.
If you want to get rid of old appliances, go to Craigslist. I posted that the appliances were free, and possibly not working and had 15 responses in the first two hours!

We were a little concerned about the guy who took them away. The first thing he said to us was basically "hey did you hear a bunch of people were just stabbed in San Jose." Great. Please don't stab us, sir. He was a talker-we learned all the places he has lived, that he has 6 children and how hot it was going to be that weekend (he was off by about 15 degrees though). But, we were glad he was taking the appliances.

There they go. Off in the truck to their new home, or whatever the guy is going to do with them.

September 17, 2009 -- Day 12 -- Termite Elimination!

This isn't related to the tenting, but I was proud of using a power tool. There were a few jade plants around the house that were old and yucky and needed to go. Wonder Woman had her lasso and invisible airplane, but I have powertools!

To get ready for the tenting, James had to go up on the roof to remove the antenna. I thought we had some sort of digital switchover that outlawed antennas and all things low-tech, but I may be wrong.

This is the house being tented. When I was a kid, I'm *sure* these looked more like circus tents than they do now. This one is boring and green. No clowns, no stripes, no fun music.

September 6 and 7, 2009 -- Day 3 and 4 -- Work begins!

There are decorative bricks in the yard that looked a little too much like a Loch Ness Monster swimming through the yard. So, I started the work on removing them and the mortar that had been holding them in place for at least 10 years!

Luckily, the previous homeowner left us 3 full bottles of sake in the fridge. We decided not to drink it that day, but may hold on to the bottles for an emergency situation.

September 6 and 7, 2009 -- Day 3 and 4 -- Work begins!

James started working on the kitchen. We're saving money by refacing and reusing the old kitchen cabinets. James pulled the old cabinets off the wall for us to resurface.

September 6 and 7, 2009 -- Day 3 and 4 -- Work begins!

Today we began our work at the house. The walls were newly painted a deliciously unappealing hospital white so we decided to paint them "Canvas Natural" by Ralph Lauren. RL has great paint colors, but their paint is too expensive for the quality that is lacking. So, we took the color to Kelly Moore to have an eye match done.

Overall painting is fun, but there is a lot of prep work like masking the baseboards.

I painted with the roller while James did the more difficult "cutting in" work.

September 4, 2009 Day 1 -- Escrow Closes

Escrow closed today on our 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom home in Santa Clara! Sadly, we can't get in the house right now because the only key is locked in the electrical panel box. James may have to climb in the window again....